It's March's new beer & ale offers time in Waitrose, their PR staff informed me of what this month's ale offers are. They are available on the following page, make sure you scroll down to the "beers" section:

Inside we were presented with a wall of casks filling the entire wall of one side of the crypt. Only local beers were available during the trade session and any beer from the main sponsors, Liverpool Organic were free! Their beers were lovely (I've only tried one of theirs before) but we made sure we actually paid for some beer as well (I know that it's not the baron way though ;) ).

Here are a list of the beers that we (Chris & I) tried roughly in order:

My favourites from the ones we tried were Liverpool Organic's Shipwreck IPA & Blueball's Blonde Bombshell - both of them were outstanding and I've love to try them again.

After we left the trade session things started to get a bit blurry, we went to the Everyman for a pint (a very nice pint of Trappers Hat from Brimstage Brewery) and a bite to eat. Paul from Source decided that Chris & I should drink something that wasn't from the UK or the USA and so forced these upon us:

I wasn't allowed the Brooklyn Lager they had on tap :(

We then ended up in The Dispensary where they had Stringers Pale Ale on, as we were with Jon & Becky from Stringers it would have been rude to not drink their beer! It was a lovely beer, crisp & refreshing with an assertive hoppy bite, I'm blaming it for the bad head I had the next day! ;)

Wadworth recently announced that they had bottled a double stout in celebration of their 125 years of brewing at the Northgate site. I'm more into strong stouts since gaining a stout education from @Christopher_R so I was very interested in this celebration stout.

After a few tweets back and forth a couple of Wadworth ales arrived today:

Received a fantastic parcel today completely out of the blue - a mixed case from Fyne Ales including their two brand new bottled beers: Hurricane Jack & Jarl:

Fyne Ales brew consistently excellent beers and have received great baron ratings so far. A lot of people have mentioned how good cask Jarl is, so I'm really looking forward to trying the bottled version.

@Christopher_R & I were running the event, we arranged with Source Deli to source the five regular Marble bottled ales as well as giving everyone a taster of the 2009 Special. I've met Colin from Marble a number of times and so asked him if they would like to attend the evening which they said they would love to, and they also mentioned that they should be able to bring something interesting along for people to try as well.

The Saturday arrived and Chris & I made our way down to Source Deli for 7pm (night was starting at 8pm) along with Paul from AlesByMail who came up for the event as well. Paul from Source Deli was sorting the tables out, and generally getting things ready so I placed down my 'group baron rating' cards and bowls (more on these later).

James & Colin from Marble arrived with Colin sporting a Demijohn of cool looking experimental beer as well as a crate of unlabelled bottles. The Demijohn contained with Lagonda IPA dry hopped with Citra, and the bottles were their Ginger ale brewed with a German yeast instead of an English one.

These beers along with the brewers showing up were not publicised when we were selling the tickets so I was pretty chuffed that we could over deliver on our promise of a Marble beer night!

Doors opened at 8pm and each of the 20 attendees were handed a real marble on entry in exchange for their ticket. The marble was used to 'baron rate' each beer tried as well as a token to swap with Source Deli at the end of the night for a bottle of their favourite Marble beer.

We kicked off the evening by introducing ourselves and explaining what the evening was about, introduce the Marble brewers and explained about the group baron rating and the use of the Marble.

Then it was time to get the caps off the bottles of Manchester Bitter and pour each person around half a bottle whilst James & Colin explained a bit about the beer to everyone. Each beer got pretty much the same treatment: an introduction from the Marble guys, half a bottle to sample then a quick rush to the bowls for people to place their marble to indicate their 'baron rating'.

The dry-hopped Lagonda was excellent, it retained the fresh citrus-ness that Lagonda IPA has but also added an additional lemony lift in the finish, it was really rather nice and the 'baron ratings' for it below indicate that most people thought the same. The experimental ginger was really interesting, Colin explained that it hadn't had the 'gingering to hell and back' that the normal bottled ginger gets but the German yeast really brought in some cloves and banana and gave the whole beer quite a lift.

Painting by Irene Wilson (see more from her in Source Deli)

There were quite a few ladies at the event which was really encouraging as well as quite a few women who classed themselves as non-beer drinkers who didn't like beer! Chris & I were pretty worried about these people, wondering why they bought a ticket to a beer event but they seemed to find a few the really liked including one lady who's favourite was Dobber - not a 'small beer' by any imagination!

Here are the results of the 'group baron rating':

Beer

5/5

4/5

3/5

2/5

1/5

Manchester Bitter

6

10

4

0

0

Lagonda IPA

9

6

3

2

0

Lagonda IPA (dry hopped Citra)

5

7

6

2

0

Chocolate Marble

3

7

7

3

0

Dobber

8

4

5

3

0

Special 2009

1

7

4

4

4

Ginger 6%

2

7

6

2

0

Ginger (German yeast)

1

7

7

4

1

There was an excellent buzz about the place and Paul & Matt from Source Deli were really happy with how the night was progressing. Chris & I too were so happy that everyone appeared to be really enjoying themselves and the brewers were getting some feedback from everyone as well - I think everyone enjoyed themselves which is the main thing!

Colin & James from Marble talking about Special 2009

Hopefully the attendees will remember which ones they enjoyed and come back and clear the shelves in Source Deli so that Marble know that it's a great place to be stocking their beers! :)

I'd like to thank brewers Colin & James from Marble for giving up their Saturday night and coming along to the event (and thanks to their ladies for driving them over!). A big thank you to Matt & Paul for hosting the event and ensuring that everyone was well catered for, and a massive thank you to Chris for being my wingman & partner in beer crime! :)

Source Deli are already talking about the next "The Ormskirk Baron presents" event so watch this space!